I am being accused of breaking my buddies external hard drive. Whether I did the damage or not - I have no freaking idea.
He says when he lent me the HD, the prongs of the USB port were fine and in working order, and when I returned it they were bent, rendering the HD useless.
My question is can these prongs be easily repaired?
Can the data on the HD be retrieved?
Is it more cost effective to just buy him a new hard drive?
Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated, and I’ll try to pay it forward if ever stumbling upon the opportunity too.
Is it the male or female side of the connector that’s messed up?
Are they bent or broken?
If bent, you can carefully straighten them.
If broken, it can be fixed, if you know how to solder.
Its the side that you stick a USB cord into. Naughty logic tells me that its the female/vaginal side.
The prongs are bent, not broken.
You can probably straighten them with some sort of poking device (e.g. small flat-head screwdriver). The prongs should be flat and resting on a surface of some kind.
http://www.accesscomms.com.au/images/Reference/usb/USB-Dimensions.gif
Be very careful, they have been stressed, and if you force them too hard, they will snap, just like a paper clip bent back and forth.
